Xiaomi Mi A1 Vs Honor 9 Lite Comparison – What Should You Buy?

Honor has recently launched the China-exclusive Honor 9 Youth Edition as Honor 9 Lite in the Indian market. It is the company’s third smartphone with FullView display and dual cameras to launch in India. The new Honor 9 Lite is also the most affordable smartphone among the three. Now, let’s compare the Honor 9 Lite with the other popular mid-range device, Xiaomi Mi A1. The Mi A1 is the Xiaomi’s first ever Android One smartphone.

While the Mi A1 was launched at Rs. 14,999, it is now retailing for Rs. 13,999 on Flipkart. On the other hand, the Honor 9 Lite comes in 3GB and 4GB RAM variants and is priced at Rs. 10,999 and Rs. 14,999 respectively. Just like the Mi A1, the Honor 9 Lite is also sold exclusively via Flipkart.

Design

Talking about the design, every other smartphone in the market looks almost similar. While there isn’t much innovation to do with the candy bar form factor, the manufacturers are trying their best to differentiate themselves from the others. The Xiaomi Mi A1 with the metal unibody design resembles with many other dual camera smartphones. On the other hand, the Honor 9 Lite comes with 2.5D curved glass on the front and rear with a mirror-finish back body.

Under Rs. 15,000 price range, it very rare to see a smartphone with glass back body. There is no issue for reaching the fingerprint sensor and hardware buttons on both the devices. Though the Honor 9 Lite comes with a slightly bigger display, it weighs almost 20 grams lesser than the Mi A1. Just like any other smartphone with glass back body, the Honor 9 Lite also easily catches the fingerprints.

Display

Coming to the display, the above featured image should give the glimpse of the outcome. The Xiaomi Mi A1 sports a 5.5-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) display with the standard 16:9 aspect ratio. The thick bezels all around the display lower the screen-to-body ratio on this device. While the Mi A1 comes with capacitive navigation buttons, the new Honor 9 Lite comes with on-screen buttons.

The Honor 9 Lite sports a 5.65-inch FullView display with Full HD+ (2160 x 1080 pixels) resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio. With the larger edge-to-edge display, the Honor 9 Lite measures smaller than the Mi A1. The displays on both the devices offer good viewing angles and come with 2.5D curved glass on the top. On the display front, the Honor 9 Lite with the new 18:9 display technology beats the Xiaomi Mi A1 with old-fashioned 16:9 display.

Camera

For many users, their smartphone is the only device for capturing photos and recording videos. Even the budget smartphones are now coming with better camera sensors and offering high-end features like manual mode and portrait mode. The rear camera on the Xiaomi Mi A1 with the 12MP wide-angle lens and 12MP telephoto lens makes it one of the best budget smartphone camera. Its flagship portrait mode feature is now offered by many other manufacturers using the software algorithm.

However, the Honor 9 Lite with the 13MP + 2MP rear camera setup is on par with the Mi A1’s rear camera on most occasions. Both the devices include PDAF support for fast focusing on the rear camera and comes with LED flash. Talking about the selfies, the 13MP + 2MP dual camera setup on the Honor 9 Lite is certainly the best when compared to the mere 5MP front-facing camera on the Mi A1. With the dual cameras, you can also adjust the focus after capturing the photos.

Software

While the Xiaomi Mi A1 came with Android 7.1.2 Nougat, the Honor 9 Lite runs on the latest Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box. Since the Mi A1 is an Android One device, it comes with stock Android UI instead of the in-house MIUI. The Mi A1 Android One device recently got the Android 8.0 Oreo update, and the company also promised to release the next major Android update (Android Peppermint?).

On the other hand, the Honor 9 Lite is powered by Huawei’s EMUI 8.0 with several India-centric features. All the latest features from Android Oreo like Picture-in-Picture (PIP) mode, notification dots, password autofill, and others are available on both the devices.

Verdict

Overall if its a comparison with major areas compared, it’s clear that the Honor 9 Lite wins over the Xiaomi Mi A1 and is a smartphone you should pick.